Ted’s main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; interactions between health, education, environment, and productivity for the poor; and methods for transparent social science research. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India. Many of the datasets used in his research are posted online, either on the relevant article page (on this website) or on Dataverse.
Featured Research
Twenty Year Economic Impacts of Deworming
Hamory, Joan, Edward Miguel, Michael Walker, Michael Kremer, and Sarah Baird
2021
Published Paper
Education and Human CapitalHealth
This study exploits a randomized school health intervention that provided deworming treatment to Kenyan children and utilizes longitudinal data to estimate impacts on economic outcomes up to 20 years
Donor contracting conditions and public procurement:
Causal evidence from Kenyan electrification
Catherine D. Wolfram, Edward Miguel, Eric Hsu, Susanna B. Berkouwer
Working Paper
African Development
There is limited causal evidence on the effects of different public procurement regulations on project quality and value-for-money for projects funded both by national governments and foreign aid dono
Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions
Lauren Falcao Bergquist, Benjamin Faber, Thibault Fally, Matthias Hoelzlein, Edward Miguel, Andres Rodriguez-Clare
2022
African DevelopmentResearch Methodology
Policies aimed at raising agricultural productivity have been a centerpiece in the fight against global poverty. Their impacts are often measured using field or quasi-experiments that provide strong c
Targeting impact versus deprivation
Johannes Haushofer, Paul Niehaus, Carlos Paramo, Edward Miguel, and Michael Walker
2022
Working Paper
African DevelopmentResearch Methodology
A large literature has examined how best to target anti-poverty programs to those most deprived in some sense (e.g., consumption). We examine the potential tradeoff between this objective versus targe
The Economics of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poor Countries
Edward Miguel and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak
2022
Other
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended health and living standards around the world. This article provides an interim overview of these effects, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries
The illusion of stable fertility preferences
Maximilian W. Müller, Joan Hamory, Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Edward Miguel
2022
Published Paper
Fertility preferences have long played a key role in models of fertility differentials and change. We examine the stability of preferences over time using rich panel data on Kenyan women’s fertility
End COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Edward Miguel, Jason Abaluck, Amrita Ahuja, Marcella Alsan, Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, James Dzansi, Denise Garrett, Paul Goldsmith-Pink
2022
Published Paper
African DevelopmentHealth
Vaccines are changing the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in grossly uneven ways. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face considerable obstacles in both receiving and distributing doses. To
Reporting all results efficiently: A RARE proposal to open up the file drawer
David D Laitin, Edward Miguel, Ala' Alrababa'h, Aleksandar Bogdanoski, Sean Grant, Katherine Hoeberling, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Don A Moore, Simine Vazire, Jeremy Weinstein, Scott Williamson
2021
Published Paper
While the social sciences have made impressive progress in adopting transparent research practices that facilitate verification, replication, and reuse of materials, the problem of publication bias pe
Improving Research Transparency in the Social Sciences: Registration, Pre-registration, and Multiple Testing Adjustments
Edward Miguel, Garret Christiansen
2021
Research Methodology
Skill Versus Voice in Local Development
Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennerster, Edward Miguel, Maarten Voors
2021
Published Paper
Where the state is weak, traditional authorities control the local provision of public goods. These leaders come from an older, less educated generation and often rule in an authoritarian and exclusio
Self-reported vs Directly Observed Face Mask Use in Kenya
Aleksandra Jakubowski, Dennis Egger, Carolyne Nekesa, Layna Lowe, Michael Walker, Edward Miguel
2021
Published Paper
Although countries in sub-Saharan Africa have so far avoided large-scale outbreaks of COVID-19, as of June 2021, the number of new cases has been surging in multiple nations. The official case count i
Evidence on Research Transparency in Economics
Edward Miguel
2021
Published Paper
Research Methodology
A decade ago, the term “research transparency” was not on economists’ radar screen, but in a few short years a scholarly movement has emerged to bring new open science practices, tools and norms
Elections and Selfishness
Kjetil Bjorvatn, Simon Galle, Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge, Edward Miguel, Daniel Posner, Bertil Tungodden, Kelly Zhang
2020
African DevelopmentPolitical Economy and Conflict
Elections affect the division of resources in society and are occasions for political elites to make appeals rooted in voters’ self-interest. Hence, elections may erode altruistic norms and cause pe